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HUME'S NON-INSTRUMENTAL AND NON-PROPOSITIONAL DECISION THEORY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2006

ROBERT SUGDEN
ROBERT SUGDEN*
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
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Abstract

Hume is often read as proposing an instrumental theory of decision, in which an agent's choices are rational if they maximally satisfy her desires, given her beliefs. In fact, Hume denies that rationality can be attributed to actions. I argue that this is not a gap needing to be filled. Hume's theory provides a coherent and self-contained understanding of action, compatible with current developments in experimental psychology and behavioural economics. On Hume's account, desires are primitive psychological motivations which do not have propositional content, and so are not subject to the criteria of rational consistency which apply to propositions.

Type
Essay
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , November 2006 , pp. 365 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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Footnotes

This paper was written as part of a research project on the methodology of experimental economics, supported by the Leverhulme Trust. It is a sign of how long I have been thinking about this topic that my greatest debts are to my late friends Jean Hampton and Martin Hollis. For more recent assistance, I am grateful to Shepley Orr, an editor and two anonymous referees.

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